


One Whole Person

by Alvitr



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4906567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alvitr/pseuds/Alvitr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vince thinks he can't love, and Howard thinks he can't be loved.</p>
<p>Originally written in March 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Whole Person

Vince thought he might never love someone.  
  
He  _liked_  nearly everyone; maybe that was why he never seemed to have the energy or attention for love. Maybe it was because he hadn't known his parents. Maybe it was because he really was as shallow as Howard said he was. Maybe he was incapable of loving anyone.  
  
Howard had told him he loved him a few times, and Vince wasn't really sure what to make of that. What he felt about Howard was definitely different than what he felt about anyone else, but he was pretty sure it wasn't love. He and Howard were just like crayons and paper, like toast and jam, like hair and Root Boost. Where there was one there was inevitably the other. But that was just logic, it wasn't love. Was it?  
  
Maybe he didn't really know what love was.  
  


:::

  
  
Howard thought no one would ever love him.  
  
He fell in love frequently. And once in awhile it lasted longer than a day. All of his life he'd craved affection desperately, like a weedy wild flower straining for sunlight on the edge of a forest. But it seemed like the more he sought the objects of his desires, the more they lept from his reach, like Daphne from Apollo. When he worked up the nerve to confess his love, the recipient of his feelings usually laughed, or, on a few awful occasions, screamed in terror. He'd even been rejected by his best friend – though, er, of course, he hadn't really meant he'd been  _in love_  with Vince. Just that he loved him. As a really close mate. Kind of like a brother. Vince was just too immature to understand the difference.  
  
There was no use for it; he was condemned to a life of solitude.   
  
Maybe he was just unlovable.   
  


:::

  
  
The phone had been ringing for several minutes and no one was picking it up.   
  
"I'm not getting it, Vince. You're closer to it than I am. It's probably for you, anyway!"  
  
"Howard, I told you! I'm waitin' for my nail polish to set, ain't I? I can't pick it up."  
  
"There's always some excuse, isn't there?"  
  
"If someone doesn't answer that phone soon," Naboo's voice called from upstairs, "there won't be enough excuses in the world that will save your damn jobs. Understood?"  
  
"Fine! Fine!  _I'll_  get it. You just sit there like a … like a spoiled little sultan."  
  
"Cheers, Howard."  
  
"Hello, the Nabootique, for all your eccentric nick-nack and jazz memorabilia needs … er, yes. This  _is_  Howard Moon. Who is this? … oh! Why … excuse me? … oh.  _Oh_. I see. Oh no. That's … that's unbelievable. Terrible. How? Jesus. I … thank you for calling and letting us know, ma'am. I'm so sorry. Yes, yes, you can reach us at this number again."  
  
"Oi, Howard, what's the matter? Why're you practicin' your Grief of a Sailor expression?"  
  
"Vince … Vince … I've got some very bad news."  
  


:::

  
  
"You doing okay in there, little man?"  
  
Silence, and then a sniffle. "Yeah. Can you come in and tell me if I look all right?"  
  
Howard hesitated, then straightened his tie and opened the door to the bedroom. Vince was standing in front of his full length mirror, trying to make his eyes look less blotchy. He was wearing a black leather jacket, a black t-shirt, and black jeans.   
  
He turned around. "I should have just got a suit," he said, his eyes downcast. "Leroy's mum is going to hate me."  
  
"Don't be silly," Howard said. "Leroy wouldn't have cared and neither will his mother. You look fine."  
  
Vince sat down on his bed and Howard joined him. Vince didn't look convinced. "I don't … I don't want be … disrespectful ..."  
  
"Vince," Howard said, "you aren't ..."  
  
"I don't … I don't know how to deal with this sort of thing, Howard," Vince said abruptly.   
  
"What? Funerals?"  
  
Vince waved his hands abstractly. "All of it!" he said, and burst into tears. He'd been sort of quietly leaking on and off for the past few days, since they'd heard about what had happened to Leroy – a freak accident involving a unicycle and a clothes line – but nothing like this. For a second Howard was frozen, not knowing what to do, and then a thousand instincts he hadn't even known he possessed kicked in and he hugged Vince close.  
  
"It's just ..." Vince said, trying again, his voice ragged and messy, "all these … feelings, Howard. I don't know what to do with them. I don't know."  
  
"Feelings?" Howard said. He wasn't quite sure what Vince was talking about. Vince seemed to have a feeling for every occasion. He was passionate about just about everything, with a purity of focus that Howard envied, because his own feelings were often quite muddled and hesitant in comparison, filled with self-doubt and recrimination.  
  
"It's too much," Vince said. He was winding down a little now, his sobs sounding more like hiccups. "I don't know how to feel like this. I think I'm broken."  
  
"Vince … I don't understand … but you aren't broken. You're just sad. That's all."   
  
Vince pulled his sheet over and rubbed at his eyes. "You know, that time when you died … for a little while, back at the zoo … I didn't feel like this."  
  
"Oh," Howard said. He was trying hard not to be offended.  
  
"I don't mean it that way. I guess I just didn't really believe you were dead. I was sure you were going to come back. And you did."  
  
Howard was silent for a minute. "But Leroy isn't," he said finally.  
  
Vince nodded. Then he said, "I don't want to live my whole life like this."  
  
"Like what?" Howard asked. For some reason he felt a sense of dread. All of a sudden he was afraid Vince might mean "like this" as in "living here, with you, minding a shop all day". He held his breath.  
  
Vince twisted the dampened sheet in his hands and looked down, his eyes covered by a wave of hair. "I mean … going through life not caring enough about anything important, or at least thinking that I don't, until it's too late and there's nothing left to care about anymore anyway." He grimaced. "I don't want to go on and on never loving anybody or anything properly, all right? Especially … especially you, Howard."  
  
Howard was speechless. The words had tumbled rapidly out of Vince's mouth, tangled and thorny, so that at first he had a hard time understanding what they meant. Vince's voice, roughened and deepened by emotion, almost sounded like someone else's other than his own.   
  
"But I ..." Vince looked up. "I don't think I know how to be any other way."  
  
Howard recalled the first time he and Vince had ever met. They'd both only been children then, but Vince already gave off that sparkle, that allure, that made nearly everyone around him take notice. He'd lapped up all the attention like a happy, pampered puppy. Howard hung back, watching the new boy and the rest of the class, feeling awkward and itchy in his brand new school cardigan. He didn't have the courage to go up to him, to wade into the scrum and try to get a bit of Vince's brilliance to rub off onto him. Even though he'd wanted to … badly. He'd forgotten how badly he wanted it, that very first day.   
  
It wasn't until after school was over and all the other kids had left that Howard, who'd stayed behind watching them go one by one, noticed that Vince wasn't going anywhere. He'd wandered over to the swings and was twisting around and around in the seat, digging his feet into the dirt to keep the swing from spinning in reverse, until the chains were bound tight and tense. He looked almost tragically lonely, as if the world had gone home for the night and he had been left behind, forgotten.  
  
And Howard went over to him, and said hello, and Vince was so startled he let the swing spin out of control and he flew right off and landed at Howard's feet, and laughed hysterically for close to ten minutes without stopping.  
  
That was how it had begun, really. And now they were sitting next to each other on Vince's bed, twenty years or more (probably more) later, two hours before their mutual friend's funeral, and Vince looked exactly the same as he had that moment on the swingset. Like he was the last person left alive on the planet. Howard thought he ought to say hello once again. But this time he kissed him.   
  
Vince pulled away almost immediately. He looked petrified. Inwardly, Howard groaned. As usual, his overtures inspired either laughter or terror.  
  
"Howard," Vince said, and covered his face with his hands.  
  
"I'm sorry, Vince," he said, deflated.  
  
"No," Vince said, his voice muffled. "Howard … I don't think I can give you what you want. It's like I told you, I don't know how. It's too hard."  
  
Puzzled, Howard rested his hand on Vince's shoulder. "You don't have to give me anything, Vince, don't worry."  
  
Vince looked at him strangely. "You say that now ..." he started, then fell silent and shook his head as though he'd changed his mind.   
  
 _Why did I kiss him?_  Howard wondered.  _What if I've ruined everything?_  But perhaps he hadn't. His hand was still splayed over Vince's shoulder, and Vince wasn't shrugging him off. If anything, he was leaning into him, just slightly. That's the way it always had been with Vince; he was so eager for physical proximity, but so far away and unattainable on nearly every other level, even to Howard most of the time, and Howard was closer to him than anyone else.  
  
For Howard it had always been the other way around. But he thought maybe he could bear all of the discomfort and self-consciousness that came with physical intimacy for Vince's sake, even if it only ended in rejection once more. He slid his hand along the bony ridge of Vince's clavicle and around to the nape of his neck and stroked it with his thumb; Vince shivered in response.  
  
"We are who we are, Vince," he said. "Don't we know each other well enough by now? There's nothing I want that you haven't already given me."  
  
Vince breathed in sharply and shakily. Then he gave Howard a lopsided, wobbly smile that, despite its tremulousness seemed full of certainty. "Maybe I'm wrong," he said instead. "It's not that it's too hard; it's always just been too easy. So easy it's scary, Howard."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Loving you."  
  


:::

  
  
Leroy was dead and buried. The evening following the funeral had been a vacuum of unreal time, like a vortex of nothingness. Vince had felt numb and tired most of the day, weirdly fragile, and awkward and embarrassed around Howard, despite the other's gentle solicitousness. They both went to bed early, and Howard, who looked genuinely exhausted, fell asleep fairly quickly. But Vince was wide awake. He wanted nothing more than to sleep and wake up as his normal self: no more stabbing pains of grief in his gut; no more paralyzing fear that his life, despite all of the color and adventure in it, was somehow ridiculously empty; and most of all, no more sneaking suspicion that he had been lying to himself about his attachment to Howard for many years. In contrast to his earlier numbness his body was fairly thrumming with restless energy now. Unused to insomnia – he'd always found it very easy to drift off whenever he needed to, no matter his environment or mood – he found lying sleepless in bed to be unbearable.   
  
To the accompaniment of Howard's soft snores, he stretched his duvet from his bed to Howard's, tying its ends to the bedposts using some socks, and then brought his pillow, a torch, and a copy of Cheekbone under his makeshift blanket cave. He was folding a double-paged spread of The Black Tubes into an origami crab when one end of the duvet, on Howard’s bed’s side, was lifted and Howard's tiny eyes peered through the slit.  
  
"What are you doing?" Howard asked, his voice muzzy and thick.   
  
"What's it look like?" Vince asked. It came out a bit sharper than it meant to. He squeezed one tiny paper claw shut and then let it spring open again.   
  
Howard didn't say anything, then his face disappeared and the bed shifted and creaked. A second later he appeared at the mouth of Vince's cave with his own pillow and blanket.  
  
"Shove over," he said.   
  
Vince slid the copy of Cheekbone under his pillow and wriggled aside to make room. He lay on his back as Howard got comfortable, the origami crab resting on his chest. For a moment they were both quiet, staring up at the abstract orange and blue patterns on Vince's duvet.  
  
"You don't want to talk about it?" Howard asked at length.  
  
Vince wordlessly placed the paper crab on his pillow and rolled onto his side, facing Howard; his knees just grazed Howard's legs. He pulled the torch up and held it facing up so that it illuminated his face from beneath. Like he was about to tell a ghost story. "What'm I supposed to be talking about?"  
  
Howard sighed. "You told me you loved me. I think."   
  
"You kissed me first."  
  
"Don't distract me with bickering."  
  
Vince smiled. "You know me too well."  
  
"Yes, that's what we were saying earlier, wasn't it?"  
  
"Yeah."   
  
Howard abruptly rolled over and pulled him close. "I don't care, Vince," he said, "I don't care. I'm sick of always being too scared of being turned down to do anything. You understand me?"  
  
"Yeah, Howard, I understand," Vince said. His heart was pounding and he felt a little dizzy. The torch was crushed between them, cradled against his chest, its light casting weird shadows against their faces. "And I … I won't this time. Turn you down, I mean."  
  
"You won't laugh? Or scream?"  
  
"No, I won't. Promise."  
  
"At  _last_ ," Howard said, and kissed him.   
  
 _At last_ , Vince agreed. There was a tender firmness to the way Howard was cradling him in his arms, as though he expected Vince to vanish but refused to let him. Vince had no intention of vanishing, not this time. Though Howard's technique was very untried, there was an element to this kiss unlike any Vince had ever experienced. He thought perhaps it was that he'd never wanted to be kissed so badly in his life. Or been kissed by anyone who wanted to be kissing him so badly, either. One of those things, or both. Probably both.   
  


:::

  
  
"I've been an idiot," Vince said later.  
  
"We've both been. We’re like a complementary set."  
  
"Together we make one whole person, right?"  
  
"That's exactly right."  
  
"But think of all the time we've wasted, figurin' that out."  
  
"We haven't really wasted it though, have we? I mean, we've always been together."  
  
"Yeah, but we could have been having a lot of fun together, too."  
  
"We have had fun."  
  
" _You know what I mean_."  
  
"We were just, you know, building up to it. That's all."  
  
"Yeah, for what? Decades?"  
  
"All good things come to he who waits. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. Patience and fortitude conquer all things. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."  
  
"Howard, put that book away. You're turnin' me right off."  
  
"Come on, I was about to read you some romantic quotations about the nature of love."  
  
"Why don't you get over here and show me the nature of love, all right? Before I fall asleep, mind."

**Author's Note:**

> Quote attributions:
> 
> "All good things come to he who waits." Just a general proverb.  
> "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." - Tolstoy  
> "Patience and fortitude conquer all things." - Emerson  
> "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." - Rousseau
> 
> I like to imagine that Howard studies up on these books of quotations so he can whip out a quote at an opportune moment and impress people with his literariness. Instead of actually reading the writers in question. -_- Oh, Howard.


End file.
